Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Stuart R. West is the author of Demon with a Comb Over and Dread and Breakfast among others. He has
an uncanny knack of combining dark humour with horror – and getting away with
it. Quite simply – it works. I’m delighted to welcome him back here today.

Cat: Hi
Stuart. Great to see you again. A lot has been happening this past twelve
months, hasn’t it? Tell us how it’s been for you.

Stuart: Thanks for putting up with me again,
Catherine. Yes indeedy, a lot has been happening. We’ve all been busy
scrambling trying to find new homes for our Samhain Publishing orphaned books.
Tons of anxiety and ridiculousness and time that I’d rather spend writing. But Demon with A Comb-Over landed at a new
home. Dread and Breakfast went to
another horror publisher, Grinning Skull Press (very nice to work with and
their covers are spectacular). And I’m currently trying to polish a horror
short story collection. Oh! Like a warrior, I’ve been battling every dang flu
and virus unleashed on mankind.

Cat: Demon with a Comb-Over has
just been reissued by Riverdale Avenue Books in a new edition that combines it
with The Book of Kobal. Tell us more about how that came about and what to
expect.

Stuart: Demon never had its time in the sun, never given a fair shake. No one
knew about the book and I think that extended to its first publisher, Samhain.
Not to speak ill of… Oh, the hell with it! Samhain threw the book under the bus
without a skidmark of marketing.

Sorry. I know I’m inviting bad karma to the
party by speaking ill of the dead. Anyway, RAB rose to the challenge. But I
thought there should also be new content upon a rebirth. Hence, my titular
demon’s origin tale, The Book of Kobal. In all of its glorious bad taste
(spanking Hitler, a slap fight with Jesus, you know…history), it just had to be
spewed out. You’re welcome!

Cat: I
know you must have been asked this a lot recently, but did you have anyone in
mind when you settled on the title Demon
with a Comb-Over?

Stuart: Honestly, I didn’t. I wrote the book a
couple years ago before the Orange One rose above being a blip on bad reality
TV radar. But now he’s such an ugly,
loud, orange blight on the world, it’s hard not to draw post-comparisons. Both
Kobal and the Cthulhu-like Orange One want to end the world. My book’s fiction. But in reality, I have
fingers crossed that there won’t be a whole lotta’ nuking going on in the next
four years. Keep hope alive!

Cat: Dread and Breakfast is a
great read. I love stories where everything is homey on the outside – but
scratch the surface and there lies something scary. You say your home state,
Kansas, is scary so I wondered if there was a model there for the Dandy Drop
Inn?

Stuart: Not a physical model, Catherine, but I
think the tale represents our wondrous, red-state of mind, peculiarity of
Kansas. Pretention time! I’ve only scratched the surface, though. As I’ve said
before, Kansas is creepy. Our serial killers really take the cake (whatever
that means).

Cat: So,
what next from Stuart R. West? Any more books coming out this year?

Stuart: The aforementioned short story horror
collection, all tales taking place within Kansas. It started as a lark, then I
discovered I had a lot to say about the Midwest. Kinda’ driven by political
angst and fall-out but I hope I don’t let that get in the way of the
entertainment and spooks and chills and laughs.

I’m also considering writing a novel based
upon one of these tales. There’s something about a teenage girl, in early ‘60’s
farmland Kansas, whose father is a mortician, and happens to dwell in a
peculiar town full of supernatural events.

Cat: I’ll
look forward to reading it. I think 2016 was a great year for horror books.
What were your favourite reads of last year?

Stuart: I’m copping out here, Catherine. There
wasn’t a bad book I read and yours were among the best. I’m also fond of L.X.
Cain’s book, Bloodwalker. Girl can
write.

Cat: Thank
you, Stuart! It was a pretty good year for horror films too. Any particular
ones that stood out for you?

Stuart: Yeah, there were some really good flicks. Lights Out, Don’t Breathe, What We Do in the
Shadows (maybe a little old, but still one of the freshest, finest horror
comedies ever). Hangman was seriously
sinister and creepy and nightmare-inducing. There’re many more I’m
forgetting. Oh! The Nicolas Cage “LeftBehind”
film was absolutely hilarious. What’s wrong with Nic Cage these days?

Cat: You’re
a prolific author and cover many different genres. Is there any genre you
wouldn’t tackle – and why?

Stuart: I used to say “romance,” but I’ve changed
my mind about that as I have a fun idea, I think. I kinda’ want to say
science-fiction (because I don’t want to research science), but I’m never
gonna’ say never there either. Possibly porn/erotica. Only because it bores me
after the first several paragraphs. Then again, my idea about gay, Christian,
werewolf erotica probably needs to be spilt.

Cat: When
you sit down to read a horror story, what do you look for in your ideal read?

Stuart: Characters, always characters first. Scares don’t come if you don’t care about the
characters. And even though humor keeps sneaking into my horror books (can’t
help it; it entertains my bad boy), I would never sacrifice character or plot
to end up in inane farce. So there.

Cat: What
is the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?

Stuart: Always wear clean underwear.

Cat: What
advice would you give to your 21 year old self?

Stuart: Value your hair while you have it. And
invest in computer stock.

Cat: Thank
you for being my guest today, Stuart

Stuart: Thanks for letting me darken your cyber
doormat, Cat!

Demon
with a Comb-Over (featuring The Book of Kobal) by Stuart R. West and Riverdale Avenue Press.
Available in Kindle
format and paperback.

Thursday, 9 February 2017

In my novella, Dark Avenging Angel – revenge, as its title suggests, is the major
theme. In this case, revenge of the most demonic kind. We’ve all heard the old
adage, “Be careful what you wish for…” Jane learns the truth of this in graphic
ways.

Avenging
angels, spirits and demons abound in the traditions and folklore of people all
over the world. One group of this type of ghost is known as a chindi.

Chindis
have their origins in ancient Navajo tradition. They are believed to be left
behind after a person dies. The deceased’s last breath contains all that is
evil and bad, the very worst traits that the person quite probably suppressed
while alive. Chindis are much feared because they can inflict illness and even
death on any who come into contact with them. They can also attach themselves
to the building where the deceased has drawn their last breath and
inadvertently created them. As a result, it is Navajo tradition for death to
occur outside, in order to allow the chindi to disperse into the air. Where a
person dies in a house or other dwelling, that place is often abandoned.

There
is also a belief that Navajo witches, who are followers of the ‘Corpse-Poison
Way’, infect others with chindi sickness by planting a piece of the corpse on
them. This can be something small or insignificant - such as powdered bone -
that the unfortunate victim doesn’t even notice at the time.

Chindis
can take any form – both human and animal. If a Navajo sees a coyote walking on
its hind legs, they know it is a chindi.

Encounters
with chindi have been recorded even relatively recently. In 1967, The Frontier Times carried an article
written by John R. Winslowe recounting his meeting with a teenage Navajo girl
called Alice Long Salt, in 1925. She told him she believed her entire family to
be cursed because, over 100 years earlier, they had deceived a blind medicine
man who had apparently cured a member of their family from being tormented by
the spirit of a man he had killed. The man had met his end in a ‘fair fight’
and in a manner acceptable to the tribal law of the time. The spirit’s
restlessness was apparently caused by his inability to sing his death song
before he died.

The
medicine man mounted a three day vigil over the tormented man, who eventually gave
an enormous sigh of relief. The spirit had been freed. Now it was time to pay
for the medicine man’s services and the Long Salts could well afford the fee of
five butchered sheep from their considerable herd. At the time (around 1825),
the Long Salts numbered around 100 and were rich and powerful. But the sheep
were grazing some considerable distance away and the two Long Salt men assigned
to butcher the sheep were lazy and decided that the blind man wouldn’t notice,
so they substituted five dead antelope instead. They cut off their heads and
legs from the knees downwards and even managed to deceive members of their own
family, including the man who had been cured, and who had been more than ready
to pay the agreed fee honestly.

Everything
was fine, until the medicine man discovered he had been tricked. Angry, he sent
a chindi to destroy the Long Salts. First an older member of the Long Salt
family, who had been in excellent health, suddenly died. He was swiftly
followed by a young and robust man who fell dead with no apparent cause.

After
that, every few weeks, yet another member of the family would suddenly and
inexplicably die. The family was in turmoil. Clearly, a chindi had been sent,
but why?

Eventually,
the two men who had substituted the antelope confessed. Immediately, carefully
selected delegates from the family were sent to try and plead for mercy from
the medicine man. They explained to him that the family had also been duped by
the two men. They begged him to call off the chindi as, by now, so many members
of the family were dead.

The
elderly medicine man listened to them and admitted he had indeed summoned a
chindi to wipe out the entire tribe of Long Salts, but he said he judged the
words of the delegates to be sincere. He was, he said, too tired to talk
further but would remove the curse once a proper recompense had been made to
him. He wouldn’t discuss what that might be then, but told the delegates to
return ten days later when they could agree terms.

This
they did – but discovered a mourning party. The medicine man had died and no
one could determine whether or not he had removed the curse. When the delegates
returned home, they discovered that family members were still becoming sick and
dying from unknown causes. The chindi continued to do its work.

The
curse also seemed to have applied to anyone marrying into the Long Salt family.
Alice’s mother died when her daughter was just seven years old, and her father
withered away to just skin and bone, dying two years later. All that remained
of the Long Salt family by the time Alice told her tragic tale, were herself,
two uncles and an aunt. Alice said that she could do nothing to help her few remaining
relations, who were all ill, crippled and helpless. Friends looked after them,
but all Alice could do was watch them slowly fade away.

An
ageing Navajo named Hosteen Behegade adopted Alice Long Salt and vowed to
protect her from the chindi.

He
and Alice took to a nomadic way of life, always on the move, trying to evade
the curse. In the winter of 1928, they sought refuge from a blizzard, in a hogan
(a traditional Navajo dwelling) three miles from the trading post at Red Mesa.
During the night, the storm deteriorated into the worst seen in years. The next
morning, Alice was dead. All their running from her destiny had been in vain.

After
100 years, the chindi curse was over. The Long Salt family was no more.

Now, to give you a taste of Dark Avenging Angel, here’s the blurb:

Don’t hurt Jane.
You may live to regret it.

Bullied
by her abusive father, Jane always felt different. Then the lonely child found
a friend in a mysterious dark lady who offers her protection—a lady she calls
her “angel”. But that protection carries a terrible price, one to be paid with
the souls of those Jane chooses to suffer a hideous and eternal fate.

When
Jane refuses to name another victim, the angel reveals her most terrifying
side. Payment must be made in full—one way or the other.

And
here’s a brief extract:

Something
had woken me from a deep sleep troubled by my recurring nightmare in which I
was in a wood, being chased by some unimaginable horror. I never saw its face,
assuming it even had one. But I knew if I didn’t find sanctuary, it would kill
me. I had just made it into the strange little house that always appeared in
the clearing, when my eyes opened and I gasped at the white, smiling face
looking down at me.

That
night, my angel seemed different somehow.

Oh,
she looked the same. Same black cloak, but this time it shimmered and I wanted
to touch it. I was sure it would feel soft as velvet under my fingers.

She
put her finger to her lips and stroked my hair. Her touch was like a gentle
breeze in summertime. My eyes wanted to close, but I forced them to stay open.

I
knew I mustn’t speak out loud, but I could still whisper. “I wish I knew your
name. Who are you? Please will you tell me?”

She
continued to smile. Her lips moved, but the answering voice I heard was again
in my head. Do not be afraid, child. It
is not yet time, but soon you will have the power to avenge yourself on those
who have done you harm. Look for me in the shadows and I will be there, taking
account.

I
understood nothing of what she said. But, from somewhere, a calm I had never
felt before emerged and wrapped itself around me.

I
blinked in the darkness as she faded from sight.

Then
I closed my eyes and slept. I never had that nightmare again after that night. But
what if I’d known what was ahead for me?

"I have not felt this excited by a horror writer since reading Susan Hill. I look forward to reading more from this hugely talented author." - Ajoobacats

"This author has an uncanny of illustrating the dark and disturbed while refusing to relent until the final climax" - Horrornews.net

“I discovered Cat Cavendish’s books not too long ago and she very quickly became one of my to-be-hoarded authors. She writes a type of horror I don’t see often: gothic, wonderfully descriptive, has witches, demons, good ol’ scares horror. Angel is a perfect example of her writing.” – Cat After Dark“Dark Avenging Angel wasn't quite the novel I expected - it's something deeper, more well-rounded, and more emotionally relevant because of it.” – Beauty in Ruins